TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative
 

IBM TSM FastBack Server _Eventlog Format String Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

ZDI-10-185: September 29th, 2010

CVSS Score

Affected Vendors

Affected Products

    Tivoli Storage Manager

TippingPoint™ IPS Customer Protection

TippingPoint IPS customers are protected against this vulnerability by Digital Vaccine protection filter ID 9965. For further product information on the TippingPoint IPS:

Vulnerability Details

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Fastback. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability.

The specific flaw exists within the FastBack server process (FastBackServer.exe) which listens by default on TCP port 11406. The process searches received packet data for a pipe character (0x7c) and then sends the remaining portion of the string to the event log without sanitization. By providing a specially crafted string with format specifiers this can be leveraged to trigger a format string vulnerability which can lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the server process.

Vendor Response

IBM states:

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21443820
Issue 2


Disclosure Timeline

    2010-01-06 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
    2010-09-29 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by:
    Sebastian Apelt (www.siberas.de)